Questions
by windscryer
Summary: A tag for 3.13 Knockdown. Bad things happen to good cops and there are always questions, some a girl wants answered, and others she wants to pretend never came up. Ryan/Jenny.


OH STARS. THAT EPISODE ON MONDAY. *brain implodes* This is the leftover confetti that was swept up afterward. Enjoy. (And please excuse any glaring mistakes. This was looked over, but I'm not sure how much more coherent my beta was post-epi.)

Disclaimer: If I owned the show, last week would have been considered a suicide attempt. But I don't, so it's attempted homicide, I guess. QUICK! SOMEBODY CALL TEAM CASTLE! :D

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Jenny wasn't stupid. She knew what it meant to be a cop's wife. Even if Kevin wasn't exactly a stereotypical cop. That was why she'd said yes to him that first time.

He wouldn't become one of those liquor-soaked cynics that turned dirty because they just gave up on it all after years of watching the innocent suffer. She wouldn't let him. But being able to protect him from that harsh fate the way he protected the city of New York wasn't always enough.

Which was why she trusted in his partner. Well, partner_s_. Javier and Kate and Rick.

Javier was his only official partner and Rick wasn't even a cop, but they were all partners. One big team that watched out for each other. She didn't worry so much about Kevin because of them.

Until the night that Javier and Kate showed up on her doorstep.

She didn't understand at first. She just thought that they had stopped by for... drinks or something.

Except, well, they shouldn't have rung the doorbell. Kevin should have been with them. Even if he forgot his keys—and he did sometimes, which was probably her fault for making sure the last thing he did every day was kiss her goodbye—he still should have been there with them, smiling sheepishly at her and making her fall in love with him all over again.

But he wasn't and they weren't laughing or smiling and then Javier used that voice that she had never heard before but that she just _knew_ was the one that he used when talking to victims.

"Jenny, we need you to come with us."

She choked on her first words, the breathy prayer of denial. "Kevin! He's not— Please! Tell me he's not—" She couldn't say it. Couldn't even think it really.

Javier's eyes widened but it was Kate who spoke, stepping forward to engulf her in a hug. "No, Jenny, he's not dead. He's okay. He's going to be okay." Jenny collapsed against the other woman and cried tears of fear and pain and relief all mixed up into one sobbing mess.

She repeated that in her head like a mantra of sanity. _He's okay. He's okay. He's okay._

When the rush of emotion passed and she was able to, she pulled back. "I'm sorry. I just—" She sniffled and wiped at her face.

Javier looked guilty and devastated. "No, I'm sorry, Jenny. I didn't... I messed that up. I'm sorry."

She shook her head. "No, it's okay. I j-jumped to conclusions I shouldn't have."

Kate continued to keep one arm around her. "Kevin is fine. There was an incident tonight though and they're keeping him at the hospital—just for observation." She emphasized that last part as she met Jenny's gaze squarely. "We came to get you so you could see him. We didn't want you to get a phone call from dispatch."

Jenny nodded, slipping free of Kate's arm to look for her purse. "I need... my purse. I..." She surveyed the room blankly, not really seeing any of it.

Kate walked past her to the couch where the bag was and picked it up. "Is there anything else?" she asked.

"I'm gonna get some clothes for Kevin," Javier said, quickly vanishing into the hallway that led back into the apartment.

Jenny watched him go, then turned to Kate. "What happened? Is he... I mean..."

"We were pursuing a lead on a case and split up. They found our suspect and were taken by surprise. He wanted information from them, so he kept them alive. Before he managed to get it, Castle and I located them and took the suspect down."

Jenny brought a hand up to her mouth. "He w-wanted information? What does... Did he... Did he _torture_ them?"

Javier returned just then and suddenly the dark line across his throat was very visible. She choked on another oath and swarmed him with a hug.

He was surprised for a second but quickly returned it, meeting Kate's gaze over Jenny's head buried against his shoulder.

"You— You—" She pulled back, tears streaming down her face. She sniffed mightily, then slugged him in the arm.

"Ow!"

"You have to be careful, Javier! You do NOT have permission to get hurt like that!" Then she was hugging him again.

Javier's confused look of semi-panic was met with a small smile and a stifled snicker. He glared and Kate cleared her expression and nodded, taking pity on him.

"We should be going, Jenny. They'll have him set up in a room by the time we get back and you should be able to see him."

"Oh! Yes! Of course!" She cursed herself, then hurried out the door, absently taking the coat that Javier snagged for her and patting her pockets for the keys.

"I got it," he said, holding up his keychain with the spare on it that Kevin had given him. "Go with Beckett to the car."

She nodded and Jenny followed Kate to the elevator. It was a silent ride down and walk to the car.

They climbed in and Jenny finally got her coat on when she a blast of warm air from the vent Kate directed her way reminded her she was shivering. "Thank you."

"No problem. Let me know if you get too warm."

Jenny smiled. "No, I mean, thank you for looking out for them."

Kate returned the smile. "Always."

There was a moment of silence, then "Oh! Rick! I forgot about— Is he okay too?"

"He'll live," Kate assured her, but her smile said that there was a story there.

Jenny watched a distance enter Kate's eyes and thought about asking about it, but decided not to.

Javier showed up then anyway and they were soon headed toward the hospital.

o.o

"Hurts like hell, doesn't it?"

"Not anymore. But it will once the painkillers wear off, I'm sure."

Kevin's soft laugh followed the blithe statement. "Yeah, it will. Thinking about moving your fingers is gonna hurt for a very long time, my friend."

"Yeah, probably," Rick sighed. He seemed about to say something more when he finally noticed their silent observer.

"Jenny!" he said, standing up so fast he almost tipped over the other way.

Kevin's eyes shot to where she was and flashes of guilt and worry lit those eyes of his.

"Hey, baby," she said softly. She'd spent most of the drive over wondering what was wrong that they'd kept him overnight, afraid to ask for any more details.

He swallowed roughly and then breathed out, "Jenny."

She couldn't hold back any longer, running over and almost taking him off the other side of the bed, she tackled him so hard.

He gave an "OOMPH!" and a slight hiss of pain, but when she tried to pull back, he just held on tighter.

"I'm sorry!" she apologized, having stupidly forgotten that to be in a hospital bed he had to be HURT somehow.

"No, baby, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry," he said, one hand cradling the back of her skull and holding it to his chest, the other wrapped around her waist and keeping her pinned half on top of him.

She tried not to cry again, but the tears refused to listen, leaking out of her eyes and running down her nose to soak into his hospital gown. "I'm sorry," she apologized again, turning her face into his chest and curling her fingers into his clothes as if he was going to be ripped away from her at any second.

"Shh," he soothed. "It's okay. I'm okay." He kissed the top of her head and she almost headbutted him when she looked up and met his eyes before taking his lips in a desperate kiss.

He was cold, icily so, and she just wanted to warm him up any way she could until he wasn't so pale and shivering slightly.

Or maybe that was her, trembling from lingering fear and fresh relief.

"I'm just gonna... go find Beckett," she vaguely heard a voice say from behind her, but she was too busy to really register who or care what they were talking about.

The kiss ended far too soon when Kevin convulsed under her and she jerked back as he turned away to hack and cough into his bent right arm.

Reality settled in and she pushed up, taking Kevin's other hand in hers when he tried to keep her there. It was as cold as his lips had been and she covered it in her own hands, wishing they were bigger to better cover it.

While he tried to catch his breath she looked him over, seeing again his scarily pale skin and now the IV taped to the back of his right hand. A blood pressure cuff was secured to his upper right arm and he was buried under a mountain of blankets, she finally noticed.

"Kate said that..." She bit her lip when his eyes locked on her. "She said that the suspect you were looking for caught you and Javier. That he wanted information."

She cursed herself silently for being a coward, but she couldn't quite ask the next question, instead looking at his hand in hers. She noticed the line around his wrist, darkening to an ugly shade of blue under the slightly raw redness on the surface. It reminded her of Javier's throat and she looked at his neck to see if he too had been choked.

There were no marks, but she could almost see where they would have been. She had to swallow down a rush of bile and nearly ran for the bathroom.

Kevin's fingers wrapping around hers and squeezing brought her back and she looked at him.

The fear and concern from before returned to his eyes and she realized that she was gasping for breath and feeling a little faint.

Which was ridiculous. She wasn't even the one who had been— She looked away.

"Hey. Jenny. Look at me."

She blinked and shook herself slightly and focused on her fiance's face.

"I'm okay. He had some questions, yeah. We didn't have answers for him so he got a little mad, but... I'm okay. I'm not going anywhere, okay?"

She was torn between wanting to know exactly what had happened and wanting to forget this ever happened.

She was pretty sure that the latter wasn't possible, but she figured that it was certainly the better of the two options to try for so she just nodded. "Okay."

If he needed to talk to her about what happened, she'd listen and try not to break down again. But she wasn't going to ask for details.

"Come here," he said, patting the bed next to him on his left side, away from the wires and tubes that connected him to various machines.

She carefully maneuvered over to his side as he scooted over a little bit to make room and snuggled in under his arm, relishing it when he wrapped it around her, and taking his hand to hold between hers again.

"So what happened on _How I Met Your Mother_ tonight?" he asked, head resting against hers.

He was still freezing and, yeah, it was definitely him shivering, but she just burrowed in closer and tried not to think about why he was so cold.

"Barney set Ted up on another date," she murmured.

"Oh yeah? With who?"

It was stupid and inconsequential and she didn't even know how she managed to keep talking about it, but she could feel him relax with every word she said, so she kept going until the nurse came in and said that visiting hours were over.

She tried to hide her panic when she looked at him, but he just smiled at the nurse in that way that she knew could melt any girl's knees—heaven knew it had turned hers to jelly on more than one occasion.

"Do you think we could have just five more minutes? I'm almost warm again."

The nurse glanced at one of the gauges and arched an eyebrow, but he just kept smiling and then added the coup de grace. "Pleeease?"

She rolled her eyes, but she was smiling. "Five more minutes, Detective Ryan. And not one more."

"Thank you," he said sincerely and she just huffed and scribbled something on his chart and left.

Jenny grinned at him and settled back down.

"Now, where were we?"

She resumed her explanation of the episode until his breathing had deepened and his arm relaxed around her shoulders.

It wasn't the nurse that returned twenty minutes later but Rick and he just smiled and flicked off the main light, leaving only the dim one over the bed. "Night, Jenny," he said softly and she smiled back.

"Night, Rick."

He closed the door and she laid her head down and sighed, following Kevin into sleep moments later.

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I'd love to know what you guys liked and didn't like. Thanks for reading!


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